Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
He followed her to the room, where two officers were now standing guard, greeted each of them, taking a moment to pull on booties and gloves, and then stepped inside, where Teresa was just setting her camera back on top of her case. She’d lifted the woman slightly, and Lennon could now clearly see the stab wounds on her chest and torso too. Her heart clenched. That look on her face. Jesus. What had she experienced in her final moments? No one should die violently, but clearly, her death hadn’t been quick. She’d cried. She’d screamed. She’d suffered.
“All three were stabbed, just like the others,” Teresa said. She looked up, her gaze hanging on Ambrose for a moment.
“Does it look like they did this to each other?” Lennon asked.
“It’s hard to say without an examination of the wounds, but I can’t imagine how it would work for three people to stab each other to death. Wouldn’t there be someone left standing?”
“Unless his or her injuries were so severe, they just lay down next to the others and died once it was all over.”
Teresa appeared to consider that for a moment and then shrugged. “Anyway, again, no murder weapons present. Whatever was used might have been stolen from the first two scenes, but all three? Also, with three people, you’d definitely need more than one weapon.” Her eyes moved back to Ambrose, who was looking around the room, a small frown hanging on his lips.
“Teresa Wong, this is Agent Ambrose Mars. He just got here yesterday.” She hadn’t even asked where he’d arrived from, but all that could wait. And didn’t matter to her anyway.
“Hi, Agent.” Teresa used her gloved wrist to push her glasses up her nose. “Welcome to the jungle.”
He gave her a small smile that held some confusion, as though he wasn’t sure if she was being sarcastic or not, and then walked over to the desk where the unknown pills had been left. His spine seemed to straighten in some minute way as he stared down at them. “Do you recognize those?” Lennon asked.
He startled slightly and looked back at her as though he’d forgotten she was there. “Only from the two previous case files. These substances appear to be the same as what was found at the other scenes, yes?”
“Yes. That lavender color is unique. The lab will confirm but they’re most likely the same, which means they’re hallucinogens.”
Ambrose walked toward where Teresa was on the floor, taking samples from under the woman’s fingernails. “Defensive wounds?” he asked.
Teresa held up the woman’s uninjured palms. “Not on her, but the man has some.”
She’d cried and screamed and suffered, but she hadn’t fought back? Maybe she’d been too out of it to defend herself.
“So if there was an unknown perpetrator, the women were drugged and didn’t fight back, but the man wasn’t? Or became lucid at some point, at least enough to fight back,” Lennon surmised. Ambrose didn’t react to her statement, still looking around the room, seeming both thoughtful and troubled. She didn’t require his input, however; the toxicology report would confirm or deny her guess.
One of the police officers guarding the door laughed at something the other one said, and Ambrose’s chin rose quickly, his eyes hanging on the two men. What’s with this guy? The dude was different. And quiet. And for whatever reason, he did not strike her as an FBI agent, even though that’s what he’d said he was and he had the badge to prove it.
She wasn’t usually judgmental, but he made her feel unbalanced, and she decided she definitely didn’t want to work with him. No maybes about it. She’d fix this when she got back to the station. He could do his bureaucratic thing, but Lennon didn’t need to hold his hand while he did it. In Lennon’s world, she’d learned to trust her first impressions. She was analytical to a fault, which was one of the qualities that served her well as an inspector, but she had no desire to dig deeper and unpack this dude.
Teresa had turned the woman on the floor slightly, and the eyes of the teddy bear beneath her peeked out. “What do you think is with the stuffed animals?” she asked. “Creepy, right?”
“Yeah, and different than the first two scenes.”
“There are more toys in the bathroom,” Teresa said.
Lennon glanced at the mostly closed door. “Seriously?” She walked to the bathroom and pushed the door open. Inside was a row of plastic toys on the edge of the bathtub. A chill rolled down Lennon’s spine. She’d stepped into the aftermath of plenty of murders, but there was something about toys amid a brutal crime scene that was very disturbing.
Especially one that also had overt sexual overtones.
When she turned around, Agent Mars was behind her. She hadn’t even heard him approach. “What are you thinking?” he asked, his eyes stuck to the children’s figurines lined up on the bathtub. Two princesses, a light-green bear . . . a unicorn with a rainbow mane. Girls’ toys. “About this scene in particular.”